Staff ReporterTURA, Dec 14: The Association for Democracy and Empowerment (ADE) has expressed its displeasure over the decision of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) to fell mature timber trees from within its reserves in an effort to make shore up its finances.“The decision for auctioning several hundreds of mature trees of Damalgre Range, Naguapara Range, Phulbari Range and Samanda Range forest areas by the GHADC is extremely disturbing,” said the NGO in a release issued on Friday.“In these distressful times while we face hazards of climate change and environmental catastrophes, the GHADC instead of strengthening efforts to fight such problems is doing exactly the opposite. The cutting down of these trees is going to lead to negative impacts on the ecosystem and the environment as a whole,” they added.

SHILLONG, Dec 14 (MIPR): The Additional Director General of Police (CID), Meghalaya, Shillong has informed that a lot of telephonic calls from both mobile as well as landline numbers are being received by general public from fraudsters impersonating as Bank or Insurance representatives.In a release issued here on Friday, the AGD said that these people are seeking details of bank accounts or ATM or debit or credit card details like card numbers, CVV number, secret 4 digit pin number, date of expiry and even One Time Password (OTP) received in the mobile phones thereby duping innocent people of their hard earned money.

Staff ReporterSHILLONG, Dec 14: The Dikshant Parade of Basic Course trainees, held at the North Eastern Police Academy on Friday, was reviewed by ShAftab Ahmad Ali, IPS (retd), the first Director of the Academy. A total of 53 trainees from 2 batches took the oath administered by Kala Ramachandran, Director, NEPA.While the 44th Basic Course comprising 19 trainees (15 DySPs from Manipur, 1 Dy SP from Nagaland and 3 Sub-Inspectors from Arunachal Pradesh) were passing out after having completed 49 weeks of intensive training, the 45th Basic Course comprising 34 Armed Branch Sub-Inspectors from Meghalaya had commenced training only in September and will continue to train at NEPA for a few more months.

Staff ReporterSHILLONG, Dec 14: In order to ensure that power is deregulated in Meghalaya, the state’s power department is making all efforts to clear the outstanding power dues in installments.Informing this here on Friday, the state’s power minister, James Sangma said, “We are working very hard to see how we can talk to the power utilities and see whether they can on the basis of whatever amount we can give to them it may not be the entire sum it may be staggered into instalments – we will negotiate with them and talk to them we are trying our level best to ensure power is deregulated.”

Staff ReporterSHILLONG, Dec 13: The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government has issued a strong warning against anyone who is spreading false information pertaining to the Sweepers’ Lane issue even as it has slammed its counterpart in Punjab while accusing it of taking a decision based on heresay.“Government cannot act on hearsay. The Punjab government without verifying facts has taken such a decision which I feel will affect the sentiments of the people out here,” Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong said here on Thursday.